Sloppy, Overcooked Burgers at The General Greene

Posted by Nick Solares, March 10, 2009 at 10:00 AM

I haven't had much luck with burgers lately. Last week I took a gamble on an organic burger from Organique that was far better than it had any right to be, but was still not exactly the soul satisfying experience I crave. The week before that I had a perfectly average burger at Coopertown Diner and the worst burger I have ever eaten at the apparently defunct Bamn. According to Eater, Bamn has been closed for several days and is going to be replaced by Baoguette, a Vietnamese style sandwich shop. In a way it is too bad that Bamn closed, not only because of the people and automat machines that are out of work but also because I can no longer name it as the worst burger in the city. Although people argue incessantly about who makes the best burger, no one argues about the worst, which is why I don't mind naming one.

That doesn't mean I want to find an immediate replacement for Bamn. I am far more interested in reviewing a burger I can recommend rather than one to avoid. With that in mind I decided to venture into Brooklyn to try out a hamburger that had received quite a bit of press when it debut last year.

The hamburger at the General Greene was designed by Ryan Skeen who consulted there between his time at Resto and his current positions as chef at The Irving Mill. Unlike Skeen's prior effort at Resto and the burger on his current menu, both of which contain pork, the burger at the General Greene is 100 percent Angus beef sourced from DeBragga. It purportedly has a 70/30 lean to fat ratio and comes on a perfectly realized plain white bun with cheddar cheese, pickles, onions and aioli. The burger is hellaciously grilled—thick hash marks are seared into the flesh—and it produces a thick outer crust.

Unfortunately, it also produced an overcooked burger. I ordered mine rare, but what came out was mostly medium. The beef was quite dry, not exhibiting much in the way of juiciness and the bun—its minimalist virtues aside—was a bit on the stale side. The cheese was, however, nicely melted to the point of appearing like a translucent veil blanketing the patty. I sent the overcooked burger back hoping that the replacement would be a juicier, the bun fresher, and the cheese as perfectly melted.

The second burger was delivered to the table by a manager who plunked it down on the table with nary a word and the body language that intimated that he felt it was my fault that the first burger was overcooked. The service was not the only thing that was sloppy—the burger looked like it had literally been thrown together. While the first burger, despite its other faults, was delicately assembled—the ingredients piled carefully on each other, the aioli sparingly applied, and the bun balanced carefully on top, appearing to hover above the burger—the second burger was a bit of a mess. Despite its diminutive size, it also made a mess by leaving my hands very greasy, but the grease was not from beef juice.

The main culprit was the aioli that was slathered on in such a great quantity that it threatened to obfuscate everything else. Certainly the beef—juicier than before but still not as much as one would expect of a 70/30 blend—had a hard time competing with its flavor, and the bread (again slightly stale) a hard time dealing with its viscosity. The impressive char was still there and the nutty cheese was again nicely melted, but the possibility of synthesis was lost to the heavy spackling of aioli. Although the burger had such potential on paper, the execution was ultimately lacking.

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Tags: AHT reviews, Brooklyn, Fort Greene, The General Greene